War diary
by Vala-sg1
Summary: A bit of late night reading.


**A/N: **real life got in the way of me writing something more serious so here's some shameless fluff. It *is* Sparktober, after all.  
Written for Sparktober 2014.

"The battle was short, but intense. Thankfully, the Wraith darts had already taken damage from the magnetic storm on the way to Lantea, and we made easy work of them. Monus and I..." Elizabeth's voice broke into a big yawn, her finger slipping from the line she had been reading. She squinted, her eyes scanned the Ancient writing on the screen and quickly found her the sentence again. "Monus and I-"

"You tired?" John interrupted her, the hint of a smile in his voice. She could almost picture the smirk he must have on his lips as he watched her struggle to read.

"Mmh, a bit." She fought another yawn, and lost miserably. "I spent the entire afternoon reading those reports on the science lab on M4J-986".

"And I spent hours yesterday writing it so it would be pleasant for you to read, you know". Even though Elizabeth knew he could not see her, her eyebrow arched up into her forehead in an expression that had become a sort of trademark for her since joining the Atlantis expedition. Since John Sheppard had entered her life, more specifically.

"Really?" She quipped, "let's just say that McKay got a little carried away with the description of the equipment. It was a long one." She felt John's arms close around her instinctively and pull her closer. She let her head fall back on his shoulder with a contented sigh. She was sitting in front of him in her bed, back flush against his solid chest, bent knees framed by his own under the covers.  
He nuzzled her temple, his lips tickling the sensitive skin there. "This is so much better than War and Peace," he joked, whispering against her ear.

They had found the journal in the Ancient database. McKay had managed to crack the codes that protected personal logs and data in the database, and a small team of linguists and anthropologists had set to the task of collecting information about daily life in Atlantis at the height of Ancient civilization. Elizabeth herself had taken up the habit to go through the discovered data herself, without having to wait for official reports, whenever time permitted. While browsing recipes, children's homework and daily planners, she came across a personal journal that had belonged to a puddle jumper pilot. Her curiosity piqued, she had learned that Garion, the pilot, had lived and piloted jumpers during the early stages of the war against the Wraith. Despite herself, Elizabeth found herself soon engrossed in his detailed description of battle and his thoughts and opinions about the ongoing struggle as well as into Lantean political issues. It felt good to be able to put a human perspective to the endless stream of numbers and reports of the official database.

One day, over lunch, she had mentioned it to John, and, the flyboy that he was, his eyes had immediately lit up at the thought of reading what was basically the Ancient equivalent of a war diary written by a pilot. They had picked up the habit of reading a few pages together on quieter nights. Elizabeth translated for him, and he started learning Ancient. An excruciating process for a mathematical mind like John's, as he never failed to remind her, but one that was slowly bearing fruit.

They met in the mess hall at the beginning, at a time when the only other people there were chess players and few night shifters on break. Then one night he showed up at her door with drinks and snacks, courtesy of the Daedalus, and since that day, they had never gone back to the mess hall.

How they went from her desk to her - or his - bed was a little hazy in her head. It had snuck up on them, she guessed at some point. Not that they weren't aware of the tension between them - his light flirting, her answers that made him squirm - but that had all been out in the open, in the glass-walled confines of her office. With their attention on Garion's space-bound adventures, their defenses must have slipped into the backseat, and they found themselves entangled, in a sort of Dantesque irony, in a relationship they had to keep secret.

He pulled her back from her thoughts with a little nibble on her earlobe. "You ok?"

"Yeah, sorry. I guess I am more tired than I thought I was. I know you wanted to read tonight -"

"It's okay," he said, gently taking the tablet from her hands and setting it on the nightstand by the bed, alongside their earpieces, "we can continue tomorrow, after I come back from M4J-986. That is, if the scientists don't find ground-breaking data and decide to set up camp over there."

"In that case, I guess you'll have to be a patient for a little while longer." Free of the tablet, Elizabeth turned in his embrace, pushing him down gently to settle in the bed.

"Can't you send someone else? Lorne hasn't been off-world in two weeks." He scooted further down the mattress, one arm hooked firmly around Elizabeth's waist.

"John!" She warned, in mock outrage. "Your scientist, your team."

John rolled his eyes. "Fair enough." After a bit of rustling and cover-pulling, John was finally lying in bed, Elizabeth half-draped over him and already threatening to fall asleep.

"Should I go back to my quarters?" He queried. It was almost an obligation to ask on his part, but they had stopped playing that game now. There was a huge advantage in keeping a secret relationship when you were the civilian and military leaders of the expedition. It meant direct access to working shift timetables and, as a result, probable movements around the residential area.

She shook her head. "Mh-mh. No need to." She dropped a light kiss on his jaw. His ever-present stubble pricked her lips. "I have a meeting at 7.00, that's after the morning shift change. You can get out then. If someone sees you leave the room, you know the drill."

"Roger that. Lights out?"

"Yes, please." She, said, her words starting to slur. "'Night John."

"Goodnight, Elizabeth."

As she succumbed to sleep, she was only vaguely aware of John picking up the tablet again to start the Ancient learning program.


End file.
